Rebecca Turner
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My anxiety/sadness is hardly ever an overall/blanket kind of thing but usually focuses on specific events that I fear, dread, regret. My mind can hardly ever relax as it has to run up to the next "bad thing" it can find and worry over it...whether it's in the past or future (Living in the moment? Not my specialty.) Sometimes these issues are valid; sometimes they're irrational. In any case, yesterday, after a long day of worrying, I was crossing the little street outside my office, which leads into a park and isn't very trafficky and has a sort of wind-tunnel effect to it. This is bad in winter, but in other seasons, it's like you're suddenly in a video, with your hair blowing romantically, and if you happening to be listening to something nice on your iPod, it really all kind of comes together. So crossing this street yesterday I heard "Under the Weather" by KT Tunstall. Here are the words:
Under this national rain cloud
I'm getting soaked to the skin
Trying to find my umbrella
But I don't know where to begin
And it's simply irrational weather
Can't even hear myself think
Constantly bailing out water
But still feel like I'm gonna sink
Coz I'm under the weather
Just like the world
So sorry for being so bold
When I turn out the light
You're out of sight
Although I know that I'm not alone
Feels like home
Feels like home
You say you feel like a natural person
You haven't got nothing to hide
So why do you feel imperfection
Cut like a sword in your side
Coz you're under the weather
Just like the world
So sorry for being so bold
When I turn out the light
You're out of sight
Although I know that I'm not alone
Feels like home
Coz I'm under the weather
Just like the world
And I need somebody to hold
When I turn out the light
You're out of sight
Although I know that I'm not alone
Feels like home
I'm not totally sure what this song is about, but it's a pretty little acoustic guitar number that has a really rocking, freeing electric-guitar part in the middle. Something about KT's voice is very soothing and she seems to be saying, I'm blue, you're blue, the weather sucks, even when you think you're doing OK, you still let things get to you, I just need a little someone to hold, I like being with you. It's kind of a living-in-the-moment sort of song, actually. And its very English in that English pop music way that I love, that goes well with rain. (Although on this particular day, it was not raining.) So, when I was crossing the street, it happened to be right at that freeing, lovely electric guitar part, and my hair was blowing, and for a split second, for just that second, I was happy. And then the next second, I wasn't again. But I kept thinking about that little shred of happiness...it was real, it was really there, for a second, and just 'cause it's not there now, doesn't mean it didn't exist. Because that song exists, and the wind exists, and my iPod exists, and here I am, able to remember what that felt like, even though now I'm onto worrying about something, and walking through the park, and it's getting dark and I'm hot and sad and annoyed and mad at myself and it's late and I'm overwhelmed. And I thought, maybe that's the most that I can hope for, the miniscule sweet moments that come and go, and trying to remember them when I'm down. I know that is so much more easily said than done, but for me, the next day, that tiny shard of contentment is still -- for the momement -- accessible. Here's the video. (For some reason that's not the version of the song on the record, but it's a nice video.)
I got my own iPod for Xmas, and I'm now back in a mode that for me, previously reached its zenith in around 1988, and then around 10 years later, two time periods in which I walked around the city glued to my Walkman. (Some Walkmen faves: Sweet Honey in the Rock, a Ray Charles/Betty Carter tape DeeDee lent me, The Rooks, The Roches Keep on Doing album and now on the iPod, Suzzy and Maggie's Zero Church). When I think about it, I tend to need portable music most when I'm getting adjusted to living in a new place or era (post-college life, the East Village, and NJ in my case) and the music seems to aid me in the adjustment as I travel around. At first with the iPod, I just listened to my own stuff that I had loaded in. It's also really helpful when recording, to listen to what we've tracked, and now with the Saturday Afternoon Song Swap, when I'm trying to figure out what to post on our MySpace page. But the most fun is discovering music and then instantly obtaining it, like the Duffy single "Mercy" (thanks, emscee). And then the other day, S. and I met for dinner at Soul Fixins, and as we ate our creamed spinach and baked chicken and the door kept flying open with the wind, which seemed to be spring trying to get in, we heard the Alicia Keys song "If I Ain't Got You" and it just put me in a great mood. On iTunes I found this beautiful version that's just her and the piano. And it sure brightens up the PATH train.
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Music definitely makes commuting easier, only thing is sometimes there is so much background noise, listening is hard. I don't want to turn up the music to ear-damaging levels either.
Off-topic: Zooey Deschanel's band She and Him is really good, very jazzy and country too. Heard it? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89142844&ft=1&f=13
Over the years I'd heard bits and pieces of Goldfrapp and thought, gee, for newfangly electronic music, that's kind of nice! But then I found their new album, Seventh Tree, streaming on AOL Music...and now it's gone, and I'm seriously missing it. (So, I just bought it, which means their evil plan worked!) The album opens with a nylon-string guitar and then Alison Goldfrapp's voice comes in -- and she's a real singer -- with something unintelligible about clowns, followed by a surge of strings and heartbreaking sustained chords. it's like the Cocteau Twins driving down Abbey Road. (Although that's the only song with garbly lyrics.) Ms. Goldfrapp is a breathtakingly pretty fashion chameleon, like a character in a movie about a rock star, but a really good movie. Their music energizes me (which I need), but also: every now and then, some British music comes along that encapsulates my long-distance (haven't been there in 10 years) anglophilia. The Beatles do it, no matter what the song. The Stones do it even better in some ways, capturing punk anger as well as stately home debauchery. The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" does it. Odd music that I've picked up there still brings it back, like a 45 I'm still carrying around of Japan covering "I Second that Emotion." And even the perfect adorableness of Rockpile did it, with their 80s charm and faithful 50s rock vibe. What it's capturing is how I feel about London, which is a place I went often in my youth, but there's also something timeless and sexy in a been-around-hundreds-of-years way. Like, dudes in tight pants shopping in a used bookstore near the Portrait Gallery and then going to see the Small Faces, but flash back and they would be poets in velvet waistcoats, headed to an assignation. I know, it's a fantasy, but Goldfrapp and many others fulfill it. Here they are in the woods, with their new single "A&E."
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I swoon to Goldfrapp. I tingle. With the right songs (Strict Machine, Twist, Ride A White Horse, Lovely 2 C U) I positively stomp my groove (if one can do that with one's groove). But I never get nostalgic. For me they exist in some ethereal realm unconnected with any nation or city. Echobelly, now they do recall the London of a previous era, although oddly enough not their actual era. But then, that's the same kind of time-slip that you get from Alison and Will. Funny stuff, music.
Whatever, Goldfrapp, always Lovely 2 Hear U.
Goldfrapp aside for the moment-- and I will check them out-- this is a beautifully written post.
I, too, have admired Goldfrapp from afar for a few years, and it was this album that finally made me say, "I must listen closely." It's a good'un! I add bonus points for the fact that hipster sex symbol Alison Goldfrapp is in her 40s.
MOGs That Trust Me (8 of 12)
MOG Meter
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I happened to have KT Tunstall here with me (well, her first album on my iPod anyway), and I just gave that song a listen. I hadn't really noticed it before, but it's lovely. And the version I have on the album is the same as the one from the video. Where did you get an acoustic guitar version? It sounds cool.
Have you ever heard DeeDee's theory of <i>momentos de felicidades</i>? What you've described sounds very much like that. For me, I find it helpful to be reminded that it's all passing. It helps to maintain a healthy sense of equanimity.
beautiful words + imagery, thank you.
Not my theory, really--it's an old Spanish proverb: "There is no happiness, only moments of happiness." Before I knew the phrase's origin, I knew it as my dad's belief that there are only "momentos del felicidad." I tend to agree. But sometimes they're enough.
Lovely post, Beck.